Quarrel Amongst Immortals
by Vendelyn Silverhawk
Summary: When Mycroft mentioned "the other one," in "His Last Vow" he did mean a brother, but that isn't the only secret- or someone- Mycroft is hiding. Now that Moriarty has returned and John, Mary, and Sherlock have just begun to adapt to their new equilibrium it's time to let a skeleton out of the closet, and she isn't happy about it. (Original Character Artemis Holmes.)


**A/N: So this is really just a choppy selection of scenes featuring one of my origianl characters, Artemis Holmes. May or may not turn into a longer fic- it's just to tide me over right now while I work on the sequel to "More Things in Heaven and Earth."**

**This takes place between the first and second episodes of season three- disregards completely the third episode- and goes in a completely different direction from there (except to maybe feature the wedding, it all depends on how far I take this). It was inspired by Mycroft's comment about "the other one" in "His Last Vow."**

**I hope you enjoy!**

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_Rain beat against the concrete outside the old red brick building, washing the sidewalk smooth in the twilight as puddles like glass grew only to be smashed by polished black shoes. They belonged to the only people mad enough to be out in such a rainstorm. _

_ Halos of light gleamed from the shadows of a half-cloud-covered sky to illuminate the sleek black tops of government-issue umbrellas, the only sound that of the raindrops beating dully on their surfaces. All else was muted, and distant, as though the world was muffled for this single night, sensing the grim purpose of those advancing upon the building. _

_ Moving quickly, efficiently, silently, their hands clamped tight on the arms, shoulders, back of the young woman shoved between them, seven agents with alabaster carved faces splashed up to the door of the building. In the background their sleek black cars idled, drivers staring blankly forward, for what they did not hear or see or know of was unable to convict them. _

_ "This is her?" A stern voice shoved past wrinkled lips murmured when the nondescript door was opened on the group, and they were subjected to the beetle-like eyes of the white-coated doctor. _

_ "Yes," the first agent said. No one looked at the subject of their conversation, though she stood literally between them in her own black cloths, her face the only exposed part of her body, and what a face it was…_

_ "Bring her in- the orderlies will take her," the doctor said simply, waving in the dour agents. Three of them continued down the hall with the woman, now flanked in front and behind by two more white-coated people. _

_ "It's true, then?" the doctor asked, nametag ("Dr. Reynolds") flashing in the dim florescent lights of the entryway, revealing only what looked like a long-vacant hospital waiting room. Whatever the building was, it was more than a block of red bricks long ignored by those outside it. "What they're saying? Why she's here?"_

_ "Yes. You are to contain her by any means necessary, but never forget who she is," the head agent said, hooded eyes following the woman's progress down the hall until the group turned into another room. A short scream split the air, and then silence reigned once more. Dr. Reynolds' face was white._

_ "My God… her own brother…" _

_ "You know your orders." _

_ Three of the agents rejoined them in the lobby, and together all seven turned towards the door in unison, a grim mirror image of clockwork. _

_ "Am I to expect any visits?" Dr. Reynolds asked when all backs were turned, apprehension clear on his face. _

_ "No."_

_ For a brief moment the smell of rain and car exhaust filtered into the room, then the door fell shut, and he was alone. _

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**Six Years Later**

"A dead _brother_?" Sherlock exclaimed, crossing his legs and frowning as Mycroft shot him an exasperated look.

"Spreading the story of our poor dead brother was better than confessing the truth about our mad little sister. Only those with the highest level of clearance know the truth- if anyone else asks, there were only ever three of us." Mycroft said, voice too carefully measured for it to reflect true calm. The rigidity of his shoulders, tense fingers as they tapped the top of his cane, belied the seemingly icy exterior to reveal the turmoil raging within. Sherlock hadn't seen his brother so unhinged in years, not even when Mycroft found out he was using again.

"But now we need her, and you need a story," Sherlock pointed out, lip curling into a sneer. "_Brother mine_, what a mess you've gotten yourself into this time, to justify rescuing _her_."

"A story has already been made," Mycroft said shortly, and Sherlock's jaw set. "You need only to verify it with those not in the loop. And, of course, there's the matter of retrieving her."

Sherlock stood and turned towards the windows through which afternoon sunlight poured, his pale skin and sunken eyes thrown into stark relief.

"I suppose she's still where you left her last time?" Even steps. Measured, paced, committed to memory. Three strides forward, turn, three strides back. Don't look at Mycroft.

If John were here he'd make a comment about Sherlock wearing a trench into the floor.

No one but Sherlock's family in that moment could have seen how his fingers itched towards his box of nicotine patches, how his eyes darted around the room to his various shoes as if wishing they were filled with opiates. His long, slender fingers fiddled rapidly with his phone to occupy themselves.

"Yes."

"Then tell me your latest and greatest tale," Sherlock spread his hands wide as a ringmaster would, overseeing an awestruck crowd. When they fell, hitting his legs with a dull _thwap, _his brother's expression was darker than ever.

"She is one of your clients, or else someone you met while drugs were your preferred high, a time when you were never consistently coherent enough to solve crime. Now that _he_ is back, you've risked contacting this old friend, foreseeing that her similar skills and connections will be of use. _That_ is your story."

"My lie."

"_The truth,_" Mycroft growled, face like stone. "Unless you want to tell our parents that they have not lost as many children as they think."

"I believe that would be your job, it being your fault and all."

The words hit Mycroft like a slap in the face and he physically recoiled, sweating palms losing their grasp on the cane so that when it fell it shattered any semblance of normalcy between the brothers and the nondescript flat which had been the stage for too many such arguments.

"I am not here to justify myself, Sherlock," he murmured thickly. "I am here to ask for your help."

"My help!" the younger Holmes snorted derisively. "For the country that has deemed me expendable on so many occasions that I have had repeated invitations to carry out probably fatal missions no less than eight times? Who decided it was a good idea to keep Moriarty on a leash and allow Magnusson to walk unchallenged? That took _Thomas_?!"

His voice carried to every level of the flats above and the shop below, thick with rage and uncharacteristic emotion, face twisted in draconian ferocity. Chest heaving, his glare would have sent any normal person running a hundred miles away in the opposite direction, but Mycroft didn't even blink.

"If not for your country, then for _her_."

"Is this you trying to admit you were wrong?" Sherlock murmured, nostrils flaring.

"Nonsense. This is me trying to save our country- _again. _And, perhaps… our family."

Both brothers chose focus points beyond the other, minds clicking and whirring as the gears of genius considered sentiment and the danger it posed. For Sherlock, it had become less of a threat- John had ensured that he would never be the mindless creature he once was, but sentiment, as much as it made him human, was dangerous when paired with someone not used to grappling with emotions or moral high-grounds.

Still, Sherlock had more practice than Mycroft, who had yet, as Sherlock put it, to "get a goldfish."

Sentiment, emotion.

There was a precedent for what too much of it could to do a person, what happened when you mixed feeling with machines, and they were about to go unleash it on the world.

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The redbrick building was as nondescript as any other- a London backdrop to be ignored, glanced at idly, and never explored or wondered over.

So, of course, it was where Mycroft had chosen to hide the "her" that he and Sherlock were collecting, for the redbrick building was in reality the hellhole where criminals such as Moriarty had waited in the dark, where those who were too dangerous to let live free and too important to kill were quietly put away until someone high up had a use for them.

A picture of its former head of staff, Dr. Jacob Reynolds, hung on the wall in the monotone waiting room, its faded flower wallpaper and puke-brown chairs an instant indicator that this was not a place where normal people were meant to feel at ease. Still, the Holmes Brothers were hardly ordinary people, so they followed the new chief of staff, Dr. Colleen Powell, down sterile white hallways mutely and without outward response to anything they heard or saw.

Arriving in a room on the basement level, Dr. Powell concluded her overview of the "patient's" current living conditions- little padded room, hand-fed, zero contact with people other than her handlers, occasionally read aloud to or given a requested book on tape, no sharp objects within reach, three hours of monitored exercise daily- and Sherlock told Mycroft stiffly that he would wait by the elevator, leaving the elder Holmes to venture forth unattended.

"It didn't start out like this, I promise," Dr. Powell said, stalking towards the orderlies minding the security cameras along the far side of the small basement room. "We followed your every instruction but without full-body restraints she was a danger to herself and others. We had no choice."

"Of course," Mycroft said. His little sister had been a handful even when she was still in full control of her mental faculties. He would have been surprised if he had come to find her still being treated like a human being, rather than a rapid dog needing a muzzle and twenty-four-hour supervision.

When he glanced at the monitors all he could see was the back of her hunched figure and the top of her head, black hair cropped close to her scalp. The straightjacket, while archaic, did its job well, as did the ankle and neck restraints which kept her entirely immobilized. Her stillness was unnatural, but she must have heard or sensed something because suddenly her head lifted, turned, her entire body straining so that she could look almost squarely at the camera in the corner of her padded cell.

At Mycroft.

A deep sigh emanated from his throat in tandem with Dr. Powell's shiver, all the while his little sister's eyes boring into the fuzzy security camera like twin black holes. Ready to swallow anyone who dared to enter.

"I am not here for a review, Dr. Powell, you have no need to fear the repercussions of your ethical violations," Mycroft said, looking away from the screen seemingly unaffected. "I am here to collect her."

"What?" the doctor yelped, knuckles white as they clutched the clipboard. "Mr. Holmes, she is mentally unbalanced, a potential public menace, you have no idea-"

"I grew up with her, Doctor. I am the reason she is what she _is_," Mycroft hissed, brokering no room for an argument. "I have e_very _idea. Now, unless you wish to be charged with treason against queen and country I suggest you let me in and release her."

Dr. Powell nodded, looking sick, and gave the order.

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"Please put your cloths back on, Artemis," Mycroft sighed, sounding for all the world as if he was telling a child to stop playing with their food. The girl in front of him blinked, and made no other response.

"Dr. Powell, fetch some cloths for her," he ordered, and the doctor hurried from the room, leaving Mycroft alone with his sister.

When he had first entered the cell she hadn't moved or made a sound, or indeed given any indication that she was still alive but for the barely perceptible rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. The straightjacket's removal, however, had spurred her to life in a way Mycroft hadn't thought possible. Quickly incapacitating both of the guards who had removed the jacket, she slithered out of her white undergarments and pants, ripping off the white socks with a snarl and bending the wire on her bra in order to get it away from her skin, treating the blindingly white clothing as if it were burning. Only when she was completely naked and free had she looked at Mycroft, narrowed her eyes, and spat on his shoes.

In the florescent light her pale skin shone like alabaster from years of sunlight deprivation, the dark circles under her eyes making for her a painted raccoon's mask, her dark green-blue eyes peering out from her face with the intensity of a cornered animal, but with a wicked spark of intelligence which normal people knew to fear. Unlike Mycroft and Sherlock, Artemis had never developed a way of softening that spark, that gleam, and in every action was so perfectly nonhuman that she was never mistaken for anything but _other_.

She had reacted accordingly to society's expectations of her astoundingly.

"Here," Dr. Powell said from behind Mycroft, holding out the folded set of black cloths Mycroft had had Anthea bring with them. The thick black turtle neck, black slacks, undergarments, and winter jacket were perfectly inconspicuous. They would hide everything worth covering up.

The cloths landed with a dry _flop _at Artemis' feet, and were promptly ignored.

"We cannot leave unless you are dressed, Artemis," Mycroft said firmly. "Don't you want to see the sun? Sherlock is waiting for you."

At the mention of Sherlock Artemis' eyes snapped to life, rapidly drinking in the sight of Mycroft in an aware way they hadn't before. Her fingers twitched, legs shifted, and her head cocked to the side in an inquisitive, birdlike gesture.

"But he didn't come in here with you."

Dr. Powell flinched at the sound of her voice- in the time since she had come Artemis had never once spoken, never opened her mouth but to eat and drink the food forced on her. Now what she heard coming from the young woman's throat was nothing like a velvety voices of her older brothers, none of Mycroft's stinging tones or Sherlock's mellow baritone. No, this voice was the rasp of sandpaper on stone, forming the words as if they were foreign and strange on her tongue. If at one time it had been as beautiful to hear as her brothers', then it was far from that now.

"No. He did not," Mycroft said, looking down and to the side to avoid her penetrating, predatory gaze.

"Is he still so squeamish that he can handle body parts and can't stand the sight of a few scars?" she sneered, hands finding their way to her slim hips, fingers splaying wide to conceal some of the markings there.

"Neither of us can, you know," Mycroft murmured, eyes finding their way back to her and tracing their way up from her feet to her face, gaze clinically detached. Any other man would have flinched at the sight of his sister's naked body, or had his morals questioned, but not Mycroft Holmes. This was his sister, and between blood there was no secret in the Holmes family, no matter how hard they tried, especially when it came to the youngest member. That was why looking at his sister's revealed body was not the problem- seeing what was on it, however, was a different story.

"My poor big brothers, can't stand a few little lines." There was no humor in it now, nothing but the bone-dry rasp of Artemis' voice and Mycroft's eyes as he took in the damage that had won his little sister her straightjacket.

The first ones had appeared when they were still children, prepubescent but quickly approaching that time when they would be labeled "young adults," responsible for their actions and their futures. They had started on her wrists, as such self-mutilation normally does, but as she grew older it only got worse. After the stunt she pulled locking herself in her room for sixty-two hours straight, even more had appeared, this time calculated scars gouged into her stomach and hips like brands. At sixteen they had spread to her inner thighs and down her legs, onto her shoulders and down to her back, though they never figured out how she managed it.

Artemis had made her body a canvas for the pain she was unable to express to anyone else, agony that dozens of therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists had been too incompetent to drive away. While many of the scars which now gleamed in the cell light were merely lines drawn in fits of rage, the ones that spiraled across her arms and ankles, collarbone, stomach, were symbols that Mycroft recognized with a hint of disgust, though the scars themselves had been made _after_ she was admitted here.

"Do you like them?" Artemis whispered, eyes wide and almost pleading, throwing Mycroft back seventeen years to when they first found her screaming, a knife in her hand, swearing to cut the badness out of herself. "They're the symbols of the angels, given to man as a gift from God."

"Put the cloths on, Artemis," Mycroft ordered. How had she gotten hold of a knife here? What fools these people were, to let his little sister mutilate herself to the point of needing a straightjacket.

She lifted her chin defiantly, shadow shifting until Mycroft realized, with horror, that the scars along her collarbone spread across her breasts, too. Not an inch of her body did not have some sort of raised scar tissue.

"Little sister," he breathed, sucking in air through his nose. "_Please._"

One long, silent heartbeat later, Artemis bent down and grabbed the pile of clothing, shoving on the underwear and bra with such force that it was evident she would rather tear them apart than wear them. When at last she was clothed from neck to wrists to ankles in black and looking almost like a real person again, Mycroft turned and walked from the cell.

Artemis didn't disappoint him; less than a second later he heard her footsteps behind him, and together they left the Tower.

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Sherlock wasn't waiting at the elevator, or in the world above for her. Not by the car Mycroft had picked him up in, or standing by the gates. According to Anthea he had simply gotten up and walked away after a time, hailing a cab two streets over, presumably for Baker Street.

Artemis' jaw set, as if she was trying to keep herself from screaming, but when slid into the car when Mycroft held open the door for her and didn't say a word until the Tower was out of view.

Reclining against the back seat with neither seatbelt nor regard for safety, her head lolled in Mycroft's direction and she frowned.

"You've lost weight. I would say stress, but last I checked your preferred coping mechanism is high-caloric sugary-foods, so you must be working out. That's not like you at all; either you have a girlfriend, have had a trauma which encouraged you to become more responsible, or something medical has happened," she reeled off, narrow eyes darting this way and that around his figure. Mycroft stifled a sigh; he had forgotten how like Sherlock Artemis was, only without his brother's restraint.

"Well?" she demanded, but then didn't wait for an answer. "I'm going to go with trauma, since we Holmes' don't do 'people' and you have absolutely none of the stress signs of a terminal illness. What's happened while I was _away_, brother mine?"

"I'm sure you'll guess soon enough," he replied flatly. Anthea turned the car around the corner and Artemis saw the red awning and assembled café tables, the dark stained wooden door and crooked knocker. Her breath hitched in her throat.

"I heard… I heard stories, whenever they turned on the TV," she murmured, straightening and pressing both fingers against the glass of the window, rapt eyes watching the door approach. "_Sherlock Holmes, _Consulting Detective. 221b Baker Street, John Watson, cracking the crimes of the century…

"Why are we here?" her voice cracked like a whip, the wistfulness of memory gone as quickly as it had come. Anthea stopped the car right in front of the door, but no one moved.

"Because we need you for a case, Artemis, and this is where it all begins."

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Predatory, beautiful, calculating and deadly in the way a viper is just before it strikes and digs its fangs into your flesh, only her poison never could decide on an impossibly quick kill versus slow, penetrating agony. With her crew-cut and narrow cheekbones, the dark makeup around her eyes, lipstick the color of pomegranate seeds and skin like porcelain through which swam blue rivers of blood, the woman was in every respect Sherlock's double, and the resemblance unnerved John Watson to no end when Mycroft stepped aside to reveal her standing in the flat's doorway.

She shrugged off her dark jacket, letting it fall to the floor on her way over to Sherlock's chair, where she sat with her feet hanging over its armrests with absolute disregard for its proper function.

Flabbergasted at the sudden female doppleganger in the room, John turned to Sherlock and Mycroft, seeking for an explanation, but the woman beat him to it.

"_So_," she said, infinity eyes darting from one person to the next. "What prompted me getting out of my box? It can't just be one little case, and don't tell me that you missed me."

"Oh, don't sound so accusing; you know why you were put there," Mycroft scoffed, hand tightening on the head of his umbrella. Artemis' eyes narrowed dangerously and her fingers dug into the sides of the chair, the ripping noise uneasily loud in the hush following Mycroft's statement.

"You sound like it was my fault. _My _fault!" Artemis screamed suddenly, raking her fingers through her short hair, nails digging into the back of her neck. Her eyes were wide and wild as her chest rose and fell dramatically. Lifting herself from the chair, she rocked unsteadily on her feet and leveled a glare at the room.

"So it was my fault that you didn't know how to cope? How to _help your sister_?" she screeched accusingly, spit flying from her mouth as she faced Mycroft. "I almost _OD_'d and you _put me in a box? _Why? Was it to spare _poor _Sherlock? Or because you saw too much potential for murder in me and decided to get rid of the problem before it even happened?"

Mycroft swallowed, face lined with weariness and grief, but Artemis saw and didn't care. Just like he hadn't cared when he injected her with drugs and she woke up in a padded cell, his voice telling her that it was for the best. _For the best. _

At the time she had agreed- she'd nearly overdosed, had a track record with drugs worse than Sherlock's, had been an inch away from ripping a man's throat out with her teeth if he didn't give her more.

But then a few weeks of detoxing and soothing music, lots of sleep, and no potential to hurt herself turned into months, years of silence and torture, and when she tried to end the monotony she got a straightjacket.

Mycroft never called.

Sherlock never came.

And for the longest time, she had started to wonder if she even existed for them anymore.

What had they told Mummy and Daddy?

"You don't know what you were like," Mycroft murmured, eyes blank as they lost themselves in the past. "You would have destroyed yourself if I didn't do something, and you could have brought down the entire British Empire with you."

"Then you could have visited! Given me a friendly reminder that I was still alive, still had a _family_," Artemis rasped, fight gone as quickly as it had come at the expression on Sherlock's face. She'd never seen so much feeling in his eyes, the visible frown and furrowed brow, nervously twitching fingers, striking her to the core.

"Artemis," Sherlock said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "Put the knife down."

Looking down, Artemis realized for the first time that she had taken out her pocket knife and was now holding it poised above the center of her palm, blade-down. She didn't even remember taking it out, let alone preparing to stab herself with it. Violent shudders overtook her body as the knife clattered to the floor and she collapsed against the chair.

John rushed forward, checking her pulse, asking her if she was alright.

"I'm fine, Doctor Watson," she murmured, gaze still locked with Sherlock's. "Just one of my 'fits.'"

"_Geezus,_" Watson muttered, eyes flicking to the knife. "You're worse than Sherlock."

A rough laugh escaped her throat, eerier and completely spine-chilling.

"Why do you think I'm the one who ended up in the nuthouse?"

"Alright, someone explain what just happened- _now_," Watson demanded as he helped Artemis back up into the chair, fingers still holding her pulse.

"John, this is my younger sister, Artemis. For the past few years she has been locked beneath a secret government building due to the threat she posed to herself and national security. Now that Moriarty is back, we need her skill set. Also Mycroft is plagued by guilt for putting her there in the first place. Any more questions?" Sherlock rattled off, but to Mycroft's annoyance, Watson's shock, and Artemis' amusement.

"How on earth is she a threat to national security? And how is she connected to Moriarty?" John asked, looking at Sherlock with that inexplicable expression of trust that his friend still didn't quite understand.

"Unfortunate question, Dr. Watson," Mycroft said grimly. "Are you sure you want an answer?"

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**A/N: So my thing is that I never update a new story until I get at least one review (to confirm that I have a readership for it, otherwise there's no point in posting) so at most a week after my first review, I'll put up chapter two! Hope you all are enjoying my little side-project, I welcome welcome welcome any and all comments/criticisms, truly! You all can help make this story better! Or even give me ideas, since I have very few in the direction this story is going. Perhaps characters you'd like to see, or some scenarios to put the united Holmes Siblings into?**

_Review! And, no, after the first review I will never hold any story hostage for reviews. Ever. All I ask is for one, for my Chapter One._


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